


Between The Rock and A Hard Place

by inamac



Series: The Brighton Chronicles [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: drapery_snarco, Humour, Interior Design, Multi, Post-War, Threesome - M/M/M, some D/s themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-14
Updated: 2009-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:51:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamac/pseuds/inamac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the War Harry goes back to Shrieking Shack to find Snape's body gone. Harry, can't resist finding out what happened. The answer lies with Draco Malfoy - but Harry has reasons not to ask Draco to join his quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between The Rock and A Hard Place

_Brighton – 2002_

"Why?" Draco Malfoy asked, settling himself into the white leather Le Corbusier lounge-chair and crossing one leg over the other with a casual elegance that evoked his absent father.

It was a question that Harry had been asking himself all through the long broom-flight from Grimmauld Place to Draco's elegant flat on the outskirts of Hove.

"Because I need to extract a memory to view in a pensieve. One of my own."

Harry had not discovered, until after the war, when he had finally sought admission to the Auror training institution, that the spells which permitted the extraction of a memory and facilitated its storage were regarded as the darkest of Dark Magic - closely related to the spells required to create and bind a horcrux. To lose a memory was akin to losing a part of ones soul. The very fact that Dumbledore had had such a collection might, had the Wizengamot not been corrupted to its core by the old wizard's views on what constituted the 'common good', have seen him incarcerated in Azkaban alongside the worst of the Death Eaters. That he had collected them by subterfuge, coercion and force would have damned a lesser wizard to the Dementor's Kiss.

It was not a technique that was taught to Aurors in training. In fact, since the end of the war, it was not taught at all. If a wizard wished to learn it he had to seek out someone who knew the Dark Arts.

Which meant the Malfoys.

After Harry had quit the Auror service he had spent three years of searching for another route to his goal. Three years of dead-ends, of abortive trips to Beaubatons, Durmstrang and even to the Salem magic archives before he had exhausted all the options and finally found himself outside the door of Draco Malfoy's flat. He braced himself for one of Draco's condescending scowls and a would-be witty comment on his lack of brains, so it was a shock when the other man brushed the comment aside. "No, I meant 'Why me?' What brings Hero Potter here after all this time? Is this some sort of Auror trap? "

Harry scrubbed his hand across his face. This was something that he had not anticipated. Since their acquittal after the war the Malfoys had kept themselves very much out of the public eye. Like the rest of the wizarding world Harry had assumed that deals had been done, information exchanged, and Unbreakable Vows made to keep them out of Azkaban. Draco was occasionally seen at the Ministry and at Gringotts, continuing the family's administration of the funding to good causes that had formerly been regarded as ministerial bribes, but was now seen as reparation, while his parents remained ensconced in the Manor, devoting their time to raising Draco's young siblings.

"No trap," Harry said. "And nothing to do with the Aurors. I packed them in a while back."

"Ah." The old sneer quirked the thin lips now. "That would be about the time that Beater for the Irish team did his big 'kiss and tell' exposé. The Auror service never did tolerate queers. Muggles, yes, even the occasional centaur or werewolf, but not shirt-lifters." His grey eyes narrowed. "That doesn't explain why you're here though. I should make it clear that I'm not available. At least, not to the great Harry Potter."

Three years before Harry might have risen to this bait, but one of the few lessons he had learned in Auror training was when and how to hold his temper. He shrugged, but the statement had stirred memories. Memories of the potions lessons of their delayed NEWT year. The reason that Harry had sought every alternative before plucking up the courage to see Draco again.

***

 _Hogwarts – 1998_

Harry reached for the silver knife with which to crush the sopohorous beans, but had stopped when he realised that, in front of him, Draco was bent over his own bench mirroring his action.

"Why are you doing that?" he hissed.

Draco turned, the expression on his face surprisingly mild. "Doing what?"

"Crushing the pods instead of cutting them. The book says..."

"I know what the book says." The familiar sneer was back now. "Professor Snape taught me that you get more juice by crushing."

"Snape told you?"

Draco turned round completely and propped himself up against the bench. "Potter, I know you missed the whole of Seventh year, or we wouldn't be here now, but it can't have escaped your notice that I was always Professor Snape's favoured pupil. So yes, he's told me lots of stuff that's not in the books." He looked suddenly sly. "And not just Potions."

Harry knew that he should not have asked, but the dungeon was heavy with the scents of verbena and asafoetida and re'em blood, and Draco's oh-so-casual pose had thrust his hips forward, flaunting the bulge in the tight fabric stretched between the double line of buttons framing his crotch.

"What else did he teach you?" Harry wasn't sure, now, whether he had spoken the words or merely thought them.

Draco's feral smile widened. "Oh lots of things. Legilimency, for one, Which is how I know for certain exactly what's going through the sludge you use for brains right now."

Harry could feel his face burning. "I'm not..." he began.

Draco licked his lips. "Oh but you are, Harry. You're thinking that you would very much like to undo my trousers," - his long fingers played with his serpentine belt-buckle - "slip your hand into my pants," - his hand moved down, palm flattened to rub at his crotch - "And. Jerk. Me. Off." The last three words were matched by a threefold thrust of his hips against his curled fist.

Harry closed his eyes briefly, picturing the action without the intervening fabric. He did not realise that Draco had leaned forward across the desk until he felt the other boy's lips close to his ear. ""Don't you wish you could read my mind, Harry? Shall I tell you what I'm thinking?"

"I... Yes... No... We should be making this potion..." He grabbed for his stirring rod, grateful when Draco moved away.

"No?" the blond said, low and flirty. "Well, perhaps you're right. Duty before pleasure, as my Father says. But if you're up for a private lesson, Professor Snape taught me a lot more than just textbook potions recipes. You know where my room is."

Through all his life Harry had been dominated by the will of others; by the Dursleys, by Dumbledore and finally, though they had scarcely realised what they were doing, by Ron and Hermione. With Voldemort dead and the Wizarding World in awe of his achievement and celebrity, he had been left anchorless.

Until Draco, arrogant, infuriating, demanding Draco Malfoy, had invited him to his room, put a collar around his neck and yanked his chain.

The collar and chain had been metaphorical - until the day their NEWT results had been distributed, and Draco had celebrated his string of 'Outstanding' grades by presenting Harry with a slim circle of padlocked steel wire.

He could still remember that night. Without need for pensieve or Dark magic. The weight of the padlock on his sternum, the pressure of the steel against his windpipe, the rattle of the chain through the bars of the brass bedstead, the relief of submitting at last to Draco's utter possession of his body and soul.

The following morning he had signed on for Auror training.

***  
 _Brighton – 2002_

 

"Harry? Earth to Harry? Hello?" Draco's far from flirty tones brought Harry out of his reminiscent reverie before it strayed too far, and back to the present, to the bright modern penthouse overlooking the English Channel.

"Sorry. I was just..."

"Lusting after my beautiful body? I must say the Aurors seem to have at least taught you some rudimentary Occlumency, but you really should take care where you're looking. Anyway, right now I'm off limits to you. So what did you come here for?"

"I need to learn about Pensieve memories."

Draco's eyes narrowed. "That's Dark Magic. In case it has escaped your notice, Potter, I do not do Dark Magic. The Ministry was rather insistent on that point. At my trial."

"I know. But I'm not asking you to do anything. I just need advice. Maybe a pointer to the books I need to look at. I swear I'm not working for the Ministry. Anything you tell me would be completely confidential."

Draco sneered. "Unbreakable Vow confidential?" he asked with acid sarcasm.

Harry's nod startled him. "Yes, if you want. We'd need to find a Bonder we can both trust, but..."

"Merlin no, Potter! I was joking. You really want this that badly?"

Harry nodded mutely. Draco rose from his seat and started to pace the room. He had his hands clasped behind his back to control them, but his teeth were worrying his lower lip as he thought. It was a mannerism so characteristically 'Draco' that Harry, watching, and remembering how those lips had once felt under his own, began to feel himself aroused.

"Why do you need to know this?" Draco asked at last.

"I think it'll help me to find out what happened to Snape," Harry admitted, aware that he had come too far now for secrecy.

"Snape's dead."

Over the past four years Harry had heard that phrase a hundred times, in a hundred different voices, but he had never heard anyone use the precise tone that Draco used, as if it was a phrase that he had learned by rote, spoken without thought or emotion. As if he had been... practicing.

"They never found a body." Harry said, carefully.

"You're the one who told everybody he was dead. You were there," Draco spat. "And you're saying now that you're not sure? That you and your friends might have left him there alive?"

"That's why I need to access my own memories. And probably Hermione's if she'll let me. I can't be sure. And I keep having... feelings."

"Have you also forgotten that the bloody Shrieking Shack was burned to the ground before the battle was even over? Fiendfyre doesn't leave much behind. You, of all people, know that." Draco stopped his pacing, came to a halt in front of Harry, and ran his hands through his hair with an exasperated gesture. "This is your 'saving people' thing, isn't it?"

Harry swallowed convulsively. The talk of Fiendfyre, the sight of Draco dishevelled and annoyed, brought back the memory of the first time he had felt the man's - boy's - arms around him - clinging on for dear life as he raced the broom from the conflagration of the Room of Hidden Things.

His arousal did not subside.

"Yes," he said, helplessly. "I know. I went back as soon as I could, after the battle. I even searched the ruins. I hoped..." He broke off, lifting his eyes to the other man's face. "Please, Draco."

Draco looked at him. Exactly as he had done when Harry had finally plucked up the courage to knock on the door of the dungeon room after that revelatory potions lesson. And Draco's words were the same as those he had uttered when he had eventually opened that door and found Harry hard and waiting. "Oh sod it! I know I'm going to regret this. All right Potter, I'll help you. But I make the rules, okay?"

Back then it had been a relief to let Draco take charge. But now? Well, this was the reason why he had been so reluctant to seek out the man again, after three years of managing his own life, making his own decisions. Because he had known that Draco would ask this question. And that he could give only one answer.

"Yes."

Draco nodded. "Right. Then we'd better deal with this first." He pressed the heel of his hand against Harry's burgeoning hardness. Harry bucked into the touch and Draco moved closer, letting the shorter man feel his own arousal.

Harry swallowed. "I thought you said you were off-limits at the moment?"

Draco smiled. "I lied."

It was what Harry had dreaded all along, this rekindling of Fiendfyre from what should have been dead ashes. Feared and anticipated. His own hands moved to Draco's fly, working to release the hardness he felt there.

"How long has it been? Since the last time?" Draco asked, a few moments – or an eternity, later, when they were both naked and he was kneeling, straddling Harry's thighs where he sprawled on the transfigured sofa.

Harry rested his head on his crossed arms and tried to drag his attention from the delicious sensation of Draco's thumbs kneading his cleft.

"Uh… Two years, eight months and a couple of weeks," he finally admitted.

"No," Draco said, bending almost double to lave the flesh between his working hands with his tongue. "I meant 'how long since you were last fucked'? You're very… tight."

" Two years, eight months and a couple of weeks," Harry repeated. "You were the first – and last. Harry Potter does not take it up the arse."

There was a sudden stillness and silence behind him. When the massaging hands returned it was with reverence and gentleness – and a great deal more oil.

"Relax. Sssssh." It was a breath in his ear as Draco finished his ministrations and slid up his partner's body. Harry felt the aroused nubs of nipples brushing each side of his spine, then the hardness of Draco's stiff prick nestling between is cheeks, the warmth and weight of his pale-furred sac below. He groaned, wanting more, and was echoed as Draco began a slow sliding motion, fucking his crack so that his pulsing penis scraped across the sensitive pucker of flesh around his hole.

"Aren't you…" Harry gasped, before a firm hand closed over his mouth.

"Two years…" Draco said, matching his actions to the rhythm of the words. "Eight months…" He ground his hips down. "And a couple…" Harry tensed, moulding his soft flesh around the slick hardness. "Of…" The words were almost a scream now. "Weeks!"

What Harry most regretted was not seeing Draco's face when he came. It was an image he had carried with him for all that time; the wide eyes, the open mouth, the mixture of astonishment and supreme smugness that was uniquely Draco. He closed his own eyes to retain the memory, and when he opened them it was to the equally well remembered sight of Draco's post-coital grin.

"You know," he said, conversationally, "That's too damn long."

***

The following morning Harry opened his eyes in a completely unfamiliar bedroom. It was not a unique experience for him. There had been a time when every waking had been an adventure. Hotel rooms, apartments, train sleeper-carriages, caravans, even tents, albeit Wizarding ones. A succession of beds and bedmates, of tea and toast and farewells.

The difference was the white-blond head beside him on the pillow, the pale arm draped across his torso, the damp cock pressed against his thigh. Harry debated whether to stroke it to full hardness (if that was possible after last night) or to wake its owner. The decision was taken from him as a hazy grey eye opened when he shifted position.

"'Mornin', Harry."

"M'co." Harry bent to place a kiss between the drawn brows, then down the aquiline nose to finally claim his bed-partner's lips. Draco's response was immediate and insistent, erasing three years of uncertainty and casual serial liaisons that, by comparison, might as well have been celibacy. When he eventually removed his tongue from Harry's mouth, and his cock from between Harry's thighs, the question of his stamina had been resolved.

"Merlin! You're still bloody insatiable, Harry. Go and make me some breakfast."

"Yes, Master."

And that, Harry reflected, as he explored the cupboards of Draco's burnished steel kitchen in search of eggs, bacon, bread, lard, and the frying pan, was the reason for his reluctance to see Draco again, and his decision to do so.

Harry used his wand to flip the bacon and bread in the pan, and to tip the boiled water from the kettle into the waiting teapot. It was as well that he was using magic, for the unexpected hand on his arse would have undoubtedly resulted in second degree burns had he not.

"You're very domesticated," Draco observed, snaffling a piece of toast and settling himself on one of the sculpted stools at the breakfast bar. "I should keep you around."

"Only as long as it takes for you to teach me all you know about pensieves."

"Damn. I knew there was a catch. Okay. I'll need to collect some books from the Manor library, and talk to a few people. Can you call back here in a week?"

Harry's hand shook as he poured the tea. "I thought…"

"No you didn't," Draco said firmly. "You waltz in here demanding to be taught Dark Arts and you expect me to drop everything just to help you to satisfy your curiosity. That would buy me a one-way ticket to Azkaban. This is going to take months, Harry."

"Oh."

Draco's smile was feral again. "But I don't see why we shouldn’t have a little fun along the way. I do hope that you kept my collar, Harry. Because next time I expect you to be wearing it."

***  
 _Grimmauld Place – 2003_

In the end it had taken nearly a year. Mostly Draco had bought the books and magical instruments that they needed to Grimauld Place. It was there, in the room where the Order of the Phoenix had gathered so often to discuss their plans and Voldemort's, that Harry had set up his own pensieve.

Harry had slipped into it to view Snape's last gift to him perhaps half a dozen times since the end of the war; on his birthday and on the anniversary of the man's death. Even he wasn't sure whether he did it as a memorial to his mother or as a penance for choosing to live when so many had died.

The memory that was now swirling in the stone bowl was a new one though - or should be, if he had correctly followed his teacher's instructions.

He rolled the empty crystal phial between his fingers hesitating as he thought back over the actions that had brought him to this point.

His short time in Auror training had taught Harry only what was forbidden. That year of research with Draco, of seeking out obscure texts, of testing innumerable materials to craft secure containers, of having his thoughts ripped from him by potions, by magic, by torture and by lust, of learning how to rape the minds of others, without their consent or knowledge – that had taught him _why_ it was forbidden.

And he had done it anyway.

Draco took the phial from his fingers, placing it carefully on a nearby table. Then he leaned over the bowl beside Harry, putting his arm over the other man's shoulders. "Do you want me with you?" he asked.

Harry hesitated. It would be best if he took any consequences of this illegal act himself. But Draco had become his other half, and he craved approval, even in this. He nodded.

"Together, then."

Warm fingers closed around his, and then they were both falling into the past.

 _It was the smells which he remembered most clearly; the damp earth-scent of the tunnel, the rotting woody decay of the Shack, Ron's sweaty fear, and finally the iron pungency of Snape's pooling blood, blood that he carried away on his robes as the three of them scrambled to get back into the tunnel. And he had been right. There had been one other thing that he had seen and forgotten in the tumble of memories of that terrible day. He looked back over his shoulder one last time as Hermione dragged him away, to see a flash of dirty white emerging from the shadows..._

Then there came the tug of the pensieve, of returning memory, and Harry was back in his study at Grimmauld Place; Draco's grip firm upon his arm.

"There was someone else there," Harry said, when had reoriented himself. "A blond. I didn't see his face, but I think it was your father."

Draco looked at him for a long moment. Then he shook his head, his own white-blond fringe swinging to shade eyes that held an unreadable expression. Anger? Sadness? Regret? When he finally spoke, his tone was neutral. "It wasn't. That was my mother."

"Narcissa! What was she doing there?"

"Fulfilling a Vow." Draco crossed the room and opened the satchel he had bought with him. When he turned back he was holding a corked spun-glass phial, in which a silver memory swirled.

"Did you never wonder why I was in the Room of Hidden Things?" he asked. "On the day of the last battle?"

Harry shook his head.

"Snape sent me there. He told my Mother to give me her wand, and said that the safest place was where I'd hidden from him for most of our sixth year. Inside Hogwarts. At that point he was in charge of the battle. No one knew where the Dark Lord was – except that he was outside Hogwarts and, if Snape had been left in charge… well," Draco shrugged and uncorked the phial. "I think," he said, "that you should see this now. Then we'll talk."

He tipped the memory into the pensieve, watched it dissolve, then took Harry's hand again and pulled him down into the past...

 _Into the dust and destruction that was Voldemort's encampment at the gates of Hogwarts._

 _Snape was there, dishevelled and looking exhausted, but giving orders to Death Eaters with grim-faced command. Narcissa was at his side when Lucius, bruised and battered as Harry had seen him only moments - hours - before, arrived with Voldemort's summons._

 _"The Shrieking Shack?" Snape asked, dark eyes glinting in the torchlight._

 _Lucius nodded. "He is obsessed, Severus. He still wants Potter alive. And... he would spend all our lives to do it."_

 _The expression that crossed Snape's face was unreadable, for an instant before the passive mask returned. "That is what he expects of his loyal servants, Lucius," he said. "And I am his most - trusted - servant." He turned as Narcissa grasped his arm._

 _"Severus, your Vow..."_

 _Snape nodded. "I have not forgotten, Narcissa. Neither have I forgotten the Dark Lord's orders." He turned back to Lucius. "I must obey his summons, but he did not specify that I should do so alone, did he?"_

 _Lucius shook his head, a glimmer of hope lighting his bruised eyes. "Take me with you," he begged._

 _"No." The reply was blunt, but tempered by a touch to Lucius' arm. "Narcissa made the Vow. You can do your best for us both here. Keep our forces away from the gates for as long as you can, Lucius. If I do not return – keep out of the battle, and save your son." He handed the sheaf of maps and plans that he had been using to Lucius. Then he swirled his cloak around his shoulders and, beckoning Narcissa to follow, swept from the encampment._

The memory ended. For a moment Harry felt Draco's hand tighten in his. "So that was why you were in the Room of Hidden Things – Snape sent you there?"

Draco nodded. "Where better to avoid the battle? Until you arrived and everything went arse over tit."

Harry let that comment go. He was remembering the expression on Snape's face. "Hermione always said that Snape must have suspected that Voldemort intended to kill him. She thought he might have had a plan, an antidote - some spell, or a bezoar - but there was so much blood..."

Again Draco squeezed his hand. "He had my Mother," he said. "Watch."

 _The memory had coalesced again, and now they were watching the scene in the shrieking Shack, only this time from a viewpoint on the far side of the room, shielded by the half-open door. Again, Voldemort summoned Nagini, watched as the snake took its prey, and then swept from the room in triumph. Harry saw himself and the others emerge from the tunnel, saw Hermione conjour the flask to collect Snape's dying memories, and scuttle away as the man took his last breath._

 _Their shadows were scarcely gone when Narcissa ran across the room, seized Snape's own wand from where it had fallen, and cast a rapid succession of spells. When she had finished the blood was gone, and the body she knelt beside was breathing._

 _"No," she said, bending low, her skirts pooling around her feet as she moved the man into a sitting position. "No, you still have a Vow to keep."_

 _She must have used magic to lift him. Standing, supporting his limp form, she used the wand one last time. Fiendfyre blossomed in a corner of the room, rose to the height of the ceiling, and plunged down in a torrent on the place where, a fraction of an instant before, a desperate witch and a dying wizard had stood. The crack of Apparition was lost in the crackle of the blaze._

Harry emerged from the grip of the pensieve memory with an expression of fury on his face. "If you knew what happened, why didn't you tell me? Why go through all this?"

"Because I didn't know how much you had seen, or what you would remember. Because it's not my secret to tell. And because," he smiled, "I'm a selfish brat - hadn't you noticed?"

Harry clamped down on a temper that threatened to erupt into violence. "Tell me," he said tightly. "Tell me everything."

Draco moved back to the sofa and patted the cushion beside him. "Come and sit down." Like an automaton Harry obeyed, sitting up stiffly to avoid contact with the other man.

Draco sighed, and pulled him closer, settling an arm around his shoulders. "You said at our trial that you'd seen the Dark Lord send my father to fetch Snape," he began.

Harry nodded. His testimony to the complete humiliation that Lucius had suffered at Voldemort's whim had been a part of the evidence that had kept the elder Malfoy out of Azkaban.

"Snape knew what Voldemort planned. He was the only person who knew both sides of the story, and who understood the precise terms of the curse laid on the Elder Wand. Yes, he expected Voldemort to try to kill him. He told Mother to wait until she was certain that the Dark Lord was convinced of his death. He didn't say anything about having to convince you," Draco said, accusingly. "Mother said that she was on tenterhooks waiting for you to leave – that's why she showed herself before you'd completely left."

"And after we left?"

Draco was moving his finger up to stroke at the point of Harry's jaw. Harry shivered. Draco pulled away and looked into the other man's eyes, suddenly serious. "How much did the Auror's teach you about Unbreakable Vows? Or were you too obsessed with pensive magic to worry about other Dark Arts?"

"What is there to know? They're unbreakable – if you do, you die."

Draco worked his hand down under Harry's shirt, palming his nipples. "Exactly. A Vow binds three people to ensure that a task is carried out, or a secret kept. If the person who makes the Vow discloses the secret, or fails at the task, he dies. But so long as he keeps the Vow, Death is not an option. And if one of the other people who witnessed the Vow works to force him to break it – then the Death Curse will take that person instead."

Harry thought, as coherently as he could, with Draco's hand moving lower. "But… Snape did kill Dumbledore."

"Snape vowed," said Draco, undoing buttons, "to watch over me as I attempted to fulfill the Dark Lord's wishes, to protect me from harm, and to carry out the deed the Dark Lord asked me to perform. Those conditions didn’t end with Dumbledore's death. That last day, Voldemort's order, to all of his supporters, was to capture Harry Potter – alive. That was the deed that Snape had to do to fulfill the Vow. He couldn’t do it if he was dead."

"So your Mother helped him?"

"The Vow bound her too. Her life-force was bound up with the spell, and allowed her to use his own wand to heal him, to destroy all evidence of her intervention, and to apparate them to safety. We have a hunting lodge not far from Hogwarts, for the grouse shooting. She left him there in the care of the house elves, and returned to the battle in time to save your hide. And very nice hide it is," Draco concluded, sucking a nipple to hardness.

It didn’t distract Harry as much as he might have wished. After all, the man had completed some Auror training.

"Narcissa told Voldemort that I was dead," Harry mused. "She did that to buy time for you – so that she could get into the school and look for you."

"Yes. As long as you were alive there was still some hope that Snape could keep the Vow – and that kept him alive." Draco had reached Harry's belt, his long fingers working to slide the leather free.

Harry bucked against them. "And I thought," he gasped, before all coherent thought left him, "That the rules about the Elder Wand were complicated. Is all Magic this confusing?"

"No," said Draco. "Sometimes it's very simple. Like this."

***

For all of Draco's expert distraction, Harry was not to be diverted from his goal. The following morning found him robed and booted and apparently ready to brave the chill of an Arctic winter. Draco looked up in astonishment from the buffet in the breakfast room where Kreacher had laid out a breakfast worthy of the last male blood-descendant of Cygnus Black.

"Where do you think that you’re going?" He asked, scooping a hard-boiled quail's egg onto his kedgeree.

"Scotland." Harry replied, beginning to draw on a pair of thick leather gloves. "Kreacher said that your hunting lodge is in the Trossachs."

Draco nodded. "It is. There's a fine view of Loch Doine, in the Autumn, and some very good shooting. But I wouldn’t recommend it right now. We don't usually open the place until a week before the Season."

"I need to see Snape."

Draco put down his fork and picked up the coffee pot. He poured two cupfuls, adding cream and sugar to one and handing it to Harry. "And so you shall. But he hasn't been in Scotland for three years – in fact I recall he was very insistent on the point as soon as he'd recovered enough to leave. He quoted Doctor Johnson."

Harry abandoned the gloves and took the cup. "I thought…"

"I rather hoped that I'd broken you of that habit. You've never been any good at it. Now, drink your coffee, and then go and get changed. Wear something suitable for a day at the seaside. And I do not mean Muggle jeans and a tacky T-shirt."

"How about Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt?" Harry asked, mischievously.

Draco reached up, hooked two fingers through the metal collar, and pulled Harry's head down to his level. "You do," he said, in a low, dangerous voice that sent shivers up Harry's spine, "and you won't sit down for a week – and not in a good way."

***

In deference to Draco's threat (or promise), when Harry finally rejoined Draco beside the hearth in what had been Walburga Black's withdrawing room he was clad in cream Chinos and a washed-out red chambray shirt. Draco looked him up and down critically, "Are you wearing the collar?" he asked.

Harry swallowed, feeling the steel hard against his adam's apple, and nodded.

"Mine." Draco confirmed, reaching long fingers to the collar of Harry's shirt and running them around the shape of the confining metal. Then he stepped back, transfigured Harry's sandals from brown to cream, and nodded approval before handing him an elaborate business card.

Harry looked down at it, puzzled. "Draco's Drapery?" he read.

"Yes. Speak very clearly. Don't dawdle." So saying Draco stepped into the fireplace and cast a handful of Floo powder into the flames.

***

 _Brighton – 2002_

Harry emerged in the back room of a small shop in the Wizarding portion of The Lanes. Draco was brushing powder from the leather sleeve of his blazer. As Harry arrived, coughing from the soot, he pulled the bellcord hanging beside the fire.

By the time Harry had cleaned himself up a middle-aged witch had popped her head around the curtained doorway. "Oh Mr Malfoy! I didn't expect you 'til tomorrow. The bed-hangings aren't nearly ready yet."

"That's okay, Lena, we were just using your Floo for convenience. But as I'm here I'll drop off the designs for the Longbottom contract. I'm afraid that Mrs Longbottom still has rather eccentric taste. "

Lena took the portfolio which Draco had extracted from his briefcase, flipped it open, and looked pained. "But Mr Malfoy, swags? With roses! I don't think I…"

Draco patted her shoulder consolingly. "I know, love. But it's what the client wants. Think of them as ironic roses."

She looked doubtful, but Draco had swept Harry up and ushered him through the narrow shop, crowded with cushions, curtains and chairs in various stages of upholstery, and out into the street, aware of the curious eyes of the witch following them.

Once outside he caught up with Draco and fell into step as he strode purposefully down the cobbled street. "What was all that about?" he asked.

Draco stopped. "I don't just live here for the sea air, you know. Or the gay nightlife. Though I admit they are a bonus. I'm here to keep an eye on my investments. And I run a small interior design business, or rather, Mother does."

"Oh." Harry frowned. "Does Gringotts have a branch down here then?"

Draco sighed. "No, you berk. Though if they did it would save me having to floo up to the London office every time one of my clients throws a wobbly. I own a few businesses around here, and fund some others. You would not believe how buoyant the Gay Galleon is these days."

Without waiting for an answer – Harry had stopped dead and was looking at Draco with an expression of bemusement – Draco turned the corner and, by the time Harry had caught up, was striding through the door of 'WIZARD WROCK'.

The place turned out, against all Harry's expectations, to sell what appeared to be Muggle seaside rock. As he entered he found Draco engaged in conversation with the proprietor, a portly bald wizard wearing a sugar-dusted striped apron, and with his wand tucked behind his ear. Harry took the opportunity to look around the shop, wondering how this particular place could possibly be connected with Draco's last comment about his investments. With its large marble slab table, used to cool and roll the sweets, and shelves full of brightly coloured sticks of rock of all sizes, it looked exactly like its Muggle counterpart.

He jumped when Draco's voice sounded close to his ear. "Try one off the top shelf."

Obediently Harry took out his wand and levitated down a length of mint-green rock from the highest shelf. He untwisted the cellophane wrapping and peered down at the exposed end of the stick where a circle of tiny green letters spelled out the message SUCK ME BIG BOY. His brows climbed to his hairline. "Does it go all the way through?" he asked.

Draco smirked. "Break it and see."

Harry tapped the stick of rock hard on the edge of the marble table. Unlike Muggle rock it shattered into neat, half-inch-long pieces. He picked one at random and read the message LICK MY DICK. Harry swallowed. "Er…"

Draco was grinning. He reached past Harry and popped the piece of rock into his mouth, speaking while he sucked. "Clever, eh? I bet the Weasleys would kill for this recipe."

Harry ran a finger inside the collar of his shirt. Draco's working tongue was turning green. "Isn't it a bit… specialist?"

"Oh the _really_ specialist stuff is in the back room. You'd be amazed at the shapes Erlynn can make out of sugar. But he also makes kids rock with stories threaded through it. Teach them the alphabet – or," he dropped his lashes seductively as he swallowed the last of the piece of rock, "you could suck your way through the _Tales of Beedle The Bard_. Though I admit that the gay porn rock sells better."

Having satisfied Harry's curiosity Draco dropped a handful of Sickles on the counter, used his wand to Summon two more sticks of the porn rock into his briefcase, and ushered Harry out into the street again.

It was not until they had made a similar exit from the fourth establishment – a small but expensive restaurant where Draco had checked not only the account books but also the list of client bookings ("Father always said that it helps to know who is entertaining people that they shouldn't, whether it's Ministry officials or other men's wives," he explained) that Harry finally lost his temper.

"Draco, you said that you’d help me in this quest to find Snape."

The other man's lips quirked, but he stopped just short of a smirk that might have earned him physical retaliation. "Quest?" he asked. "I've always wanted to go on a quest. If you’d said we were on a quest I'd have brought my sword."

Harry took a threatening step towards him, and Draco held up his hand. "Okay. One more shop and then I promise I'll tell you everything I know about Snape."

***

The 'one more shop' proved not to be in the Wizarding quarter of The Lanes, but a short Apparition away in the North Laine area. When the tug of side-along ended Harry was surprised to find themselves outside a very Muggle Victorian shop-front with a bow window set with small square panes of glass, behind which was an array of old fashioned alchemists bottles, a narrow panelled door set back from the street with a bullseye fanlight and an ornate brass knocker in the shape of a stylised Grecian urn, overtopped by a wooden signboard with faded gilt lettering: _PRINCES PHARMACY_.

A bell hung on a spring over the door tinkled as Draco pushed it open and ushered Harry through into the bright interior. The period trappings ended at the door. Inside the place was as bright and clean as Draco's penthouse. Two glass-sided cabinets held displays of neatly labelled phials, one for aromatherapy oils, the other for herbal remedies. Larger bottles, boxes and cans were shelved in colourful confusion behind the clean, white-tiled counter, presided over by a young, white-coated assistant, who gave them a bright, and all too calculating, smile as they entered.

"Can I help you?" he asked, as the echoes of the bell died away.

"Malfoy," said Draco, stepping up and laying his case on the counter. "I know it’s not my usual day, but I think the proprietor might wish to bring our appointment forward. I have something that I know he'll want to – examine – himself."

The youth looked doubtful, but finally decided that he had neither the power, nor the personality to thwart Draco. "He's working out back. I suppose…"

Draco didn't allow him to finish. "Fine," he said, pushing up the hinged end of the counter. "We'll just go through then. No need to announce us."

He ushered Harry through the door behind the counter and stood aside to let him go past and into the short corridor leading to the rear of the building. It was strangely silent back here, and Harry was reminded, by the Victorian tiled floor, the brown gloss-painted dado, and faint smell of something that wasn't (quite) boiling cabbage, of his first encounter with Grimmauld Place.

At the end of the corridor was a tall panelled door, partly ajar. Harry glanced back at Draco, who nodded encouragement. Warily, unsure of what to expect – the boy in the shop had clearly been reluctant to allow them back here, Harry pushed the door open and stepped through.

He found himself in an old-fashioned green-tiled kitchen, with an array of copper pots and pans shelved against the walls, and bunches of herbs and roots hanging from iron-framed drying racks suspended from the ceiling.

A tall man in a white coat, with dark, greying hair cut just short enough above his ears to reveal the glint of gold in one earlobe, was bending over a bubbling saucepan on a hissing gas hotplate. It was not until he half-turned, and Harry caught the unmistakable profile of a hooked nose, that he recognised him, "Snape!"

The man carefully put down the wooden spoon with which he had been stirring the virulent green contents of the saucepan on the workbench and turned to face them. "Snape is dead," he said, his tone flat and final. "My name is Septimus Prince."

Behind Harry, Draco crossed his arms and leaned back against one of the cupboard doors. "I told him so," he said, "but he wouldn't listen. He's very persistent."

"I'd hoped that he might have grown out of that habit."

Draco shrugged, pushed away from the cabinet, walked past Harry, and put his hands on the older man's shoulders to draw him close for a kiss full on the mouth. "I haven't grown out of mine," he said, when he finally pulled away.

"You're still a pushy brat, Malfoy. And you're a day early."

Draco shrugged. "Harry insisted."

"And you always fall for a sob story." But it was said without malice, and he had not released the younger man. "Well," he added, "since you are here you may as well make yourself useful." He disengaged from the embrace, turned to pick up the spoon, and handed it to Draco. "Stir that. Six clockwise, three anti-clockwise, until it thickens. Don't let it boil."

Harry was surprised when, without further argument, Draco complied. Snape, satisfied that his former pupil was wholly occupied, gave Harry a curt nod. "Follow me."

Harry obeyed without question. This meeting was nothing like the reunion he had envisioned. Though in truth he had been unsure of what to expect when he had set out to find out what had happened to Snape – a lonely grave, an invalid, horribly scared by Nagini's poison, or the man as he had been at Hogwarts; sarcastic, secretive, a vulture pacing the halls of some private institution like a black-clad nemesis.

The man he followed now, along the corridor and up the narrow staircase, was not at all what he had imagined. Despite the grey hair, Snape now seemed much younger than he had at Hogwarts. He moved with the same purposeful stride, white coat swinging around him as freely as his black robes had ever done. The shadows in his eyes were gone. It was hard to reconcile this man with the image presented in his own memories. Except for one. Harry had a sudden image of the confident boy at his Sorting, elated at being placed in Slytherin, welcomed to a place by Lucius Malfoy's side.

"Stop staring, Potter, and sit down."

They had reached their destination, a book-lined study with a blazing fire in the grate and a pair of well-worn wing armchairs on either side. Snape – Prince – took one and gestured Harry into the other. The older man's first words were the last thing Harry had expected. "Well, I can't say that this wasn't expected. You always were a persistent brat, Potter. Tell me, what are your intentions towards Draco Malfoy?"

"I – What?"

"It's a simple question, Potter. Draco is under my protection. I need to know whether you intend to challenge that. I warn you, I take my duties very seriously."

Harry looked at the other man open-mouthed. His mind was numb. Snape couldn't mean, could he, that there was some sort of sexual liaison between himself and Draco? Then he realised what Snape must mean.

"I know that the Unbreakable Vow you made with Narcissa…"

Snape waved away the protest. "Ended with Riddle's death. And Bellatrix's. I am talking,. Potter, about Draco's position as my… partner. Boyfriend. Catamite. Pick one. I personally incline towards the latter, but you may not prefer plain speaking."

At school Severus Snape had always been able to reduce Harry Potter to incoherent stuttering in the face of what he regarded as quite straightforward questions. But that had been then. Four years, and extensive Auror training, had taught him to give equally straightforward answers.

"I take my position seriously too, Sir. As Draco's… lover. Slave. Catamite."

The room was silent, save for the crackling of the logs in the fire. Snape's black eyes gazed into his. Assessing. Perhaps using legilimency. Harry no longer cared. His mind was completely open, even to the memory of last night. In fact that was at the forefront.

Eventually Snape nodded, and reached out a long-fingered hand to Harry's throat, pushed back the edge of his shirt and fingered the padlock of the collar. "I will need," he said, leaning further forward, "my own key." And his lips claimed Harry's in a burning, possessive kiss.

It might have lasted for aeons. Harry did not want it to end, but Snape finally pulled away, giving Harry the chance to again form a coherent thought. "How… how did you know? That I wanted to find you – for this?"

The kiss-bruised lips curved into a sardonic smile. "Harry, you cannot allow another wizard to fuck you and not have him learn all your secrets. Particularly a wizard who, unlike yourself, actually listened to my lessons. Draco knew. He came and told me months ago."

"Though you knew perfectly well without me having to tell you," Draco added, from the doorway. "And," he continued, stepping into the room and setting down the tray which he was levitating gently onto the table, "You were expecting us. Why else would you have been cooking enough for three?"

Harry peered suspiciously into the three steaming bowls of thick green liquid. "What is it?" he asked.

"Pea and ham soup." Draco handed Harry a spoon, then knelt gracefully at the table and dipped a second spoon into the bowl in front of Snape, blew across it to cool the liquid, and offered it up with the air of an odalisque feeding grapes to her master.

Instead of leaning forward to sip the soup directly from the spoon, as Harry had expected, Snape took it from Draco's fingers and tipped it into his own mouth. "Sustenance first, Draco. Then sensuality. Eat it while it's still hot. And did you tell Michael to close the shop and lock up as he left?"

Draco nodded. "Yes, Sir. And I remembered to turn off the gas and Ward the lab. We won't be disturbed."

Harry's heart jumped as two lazy smiles turned in his direction. He saught refuge in inconsequence. "Er," said Harry, "That sign over the shop - Princes Pharmacy - shouldn’t there be an apostrophe?"

Snape gave a feral smile. "Do you know," he asked, rhetorically, "How many people a day come into the shop just to point that out? And they never leave without buying something. I charge pedants extra." The smile grew wider. "But in your case, I think I might just mete out punishment in kind."

***

Harry wondered, later, whether there had been a potion in the soup. Or whether the others had placed him under some sort of sexual _Imperius_ curse. His thoughts had become sluggish, dreamlike as he watched Draco clear away the food, and Snape transfigure a seat into a low, wide couch.

"I think," Snape said at last, "That we should begin very slowly, as it's your first time."

"I don't…" Harry began – and then stopped at the flash of the black eyes.

"It is your first time with me," he said, with all the acerbity of the classroom. "Draco, undress him. No wands. Go slowly."

"I…" Harry began again. And again the dark eyes met his.

"Do we have to tie you up and gag you, Mister Potter? I was under the impression that Draco had you properly trained. But if not, we could start with his… chastisement."

Harry did not know whether it was his own imagination which supplied an image of Draco's white-knuckled hands gripping the back of the chair he now sat in, head thrown back, open-mouthed in ecstatic response as Snape wielded a thin cane across his naked back, thighs and buttocks, or whether it was a real memory from one of the two wizards facing him. Whichever it was, he was suddenly hard. He nodded, mutely, as Draco's elegant fingers started to unbutton his shirt.

As Draco obeyed his orders meticulously, easing each garment off slowly, Snape moved round behind Harry and cradled his jaw in those long fingers, his thumbs pressing the hardness of the collar against the back of Harry's neck. A moment later, as, at Draco's urging, he lifted a foot to step out of his pants, warm lips whispered against his ear.

"When he's finished, what do you want us to do to you, Harry? I do have a cane…"

Harry's cock jerked against the back of Draco's hand as he leaned back into the caress. "You… you can read my mind…" he gasped.

He felt Snape's smile on the nape of his neck. "I have always been able to read your mind, boy. But up until now there has been nothing in it worth reading."

Harry pictured, very clearly, the image of those siren lips drifting up along his jaw, of a tongue pressing unto his ear – and was rewarded with the reality, and the thought, moving through his mind, "You're learning."

There came a brief, needy gasp from somewhere around his knees. Draco was feeling left out.

Snape stopped his ministrations and flipped his wand. "Patience, Draco. You may have arrived here earlier than we arranged, but you are not going to come early."

Harry felt Draco's fingers grip his hips with bruising force as Snape's spell took effect.

"Bloody cock-ring," he moaned.

Snape stepped back against the mantelpiece, from where he could watch both his guests. "Don't swear, Draco," he said, in the tones that he had previously used for taking House points. "Or there will be other restraints. Now, get on with it and suck Harry. And do not let him come, or…"

Draco did not wait to hear the consequences of disobedience. He dropped to his knees so fast that the floorboards bounced. One hand moved from Harry's hip to his cock, guiding it into the warm cavern of Draco's mouth.

Draco's blow-jobs had always been a reward, given for Harry's pleasure. This one was Draco's punishment, ordered for Snape's gratification. Harry watched the older man's face over the top of Draco's moving head. There was no word spoken, but Harry recognised the concentration. As Draco's tongue flattened against his pulsing vein, teased his slit, as teeth scraped his foreskin Harry wondered exactly how often Snape had wordlessly commanded these touches on his own body. And then he stopped thinking as Draco tilted his head back, allowing Harry's sensitive tip to slide across the ridges of his palate, and only the suddenly firm grip on the base of his penis prevented him from flooding down Draco's throat. He gasped… and suddenly Snape's open mouth was on his, swallowing his arousal, taking from his something that he had ached to give for half his life.

"I'm still here, you know," said Draco, hoarsely and from half a world away. "You promised…"

Snape broke the kiss and looked sourly at them both. "We have all night," he said. "And more, if you want it. If you think you can satisfy me."

Harry met Draco's eyes. He was beginning to realise just how powerful a wizard Snape was. That the man could pluck every thought, every desire, every need, directly from his mind – and gratify him absolutely.

His quest was over.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2009 'drapery_snarco fest on LiveJournal, to the prompt of the summary. Thanks to Lil Shepherd for editorial duties and Alisanne for encouragement.


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